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Show Record just below the mouth of Nokai Canyon. Mr. Mendenhall, in response to questions propounded by the Special Master, testified: I started form Bluff with my boat and took it down to our camp, which was located in the second canyon, about five or six miles below the mouth of Gypsum Creek, where there is now a bridge across the San Juan. I took the boat down the river with a paddle and after I took the boat to out camp I went on from there. Mr. Mendenhall testified further on direct examination: 3466 The water was at a fair stage for low water season. Due to floods its volume had held up fairly well. I went through pretty well, but had to line the boat down a number of places. It was a light boat and easily handled. I went through very readily and got on through to camp. I made the trip very quickly and don't recall whether it consumed one or two days. We then cleaned up the bar we were working on, rigged up our outfit, and the five of us started on down the river with four boats. We had built the other three boats there at our camp from lumber we had brought in for use in 3467 our mining equipment. We had quite an outfit and loaded it into these boats. One of the boats was probably sixteen feet long an four and a half feet wide, and as loaded probably drew eight or ten inches of water. One of the other boats was twelve feet long, and the other two about fourteen feet long, with a three and a half foot beam, and we used those for carrying our lighter camp 3468 equipment and outfit. We picked up the fourth boat, which I have referred to as the scow, after leaving our camp with three boats. It was quite hard at first with our heavy outfit to get through the canyon because it is full of rapids and very swift water and we had to be careful. We could always tell when we were approaching a serious rapid by the noise, which we could sometimes hear for a mile, and we would always land and examine the rapid before going through and then arrange our equipment so we would go through most readily. We frequently had to line our boats. |